Post by Angela on May 15, 2018 6:23:19 GMT 9

Hello!

I wonder if I could ask for some advice?

I am a native English speaker, married to another native English speaker living in the UK. I used to speak very good French, although it has slipped a bit and I am actively working on bringing it back to the front of my mind (it's amazing how quickly the brain files things it doesn't use all the time!). I was always interested in languages and always planned to try and introduce other languages to any children.

When my son was born I tried to speak French to him when I was with him as much as possible which (although weird at first) started to feel more natural over time. However, I had a bit of a crisis of confidence about it and my ability to provide him with good enough language input when he was about 10 months so from that point it has been limited to a couple of books he likes and some songs. He is also now in an English-speaking nursery as I am back at work.

He is now 21 months and I want to try to reintroduce the French. This is helped by the fact that I am expecting another one in a couple of months so will be home again with them both for a while.

But...his English language is suddenly exploding (he didn't say very much for ages and now we get one or two new words that stick each day). I know that if I want him to have the most benefit I need to bring the ml in as soon as possible but I also don't want to cause him loads of problems or confusion by suddenly being completely incomprehensible to him!

I have started small, with more songs and doubling up on some frequent words like "thank you, merci" etc but if I do that long term he will see no need to use the French because I am using the English for him. He can go to a French-speaking nursery at 3 but not before and I have a couple of Francophone friends with children the same age but I am wondering if anyone has any advice for reintroducing the language without making him feel insecure? Is this just a really bad time to do it?

I should also say, my partner has very little of any language other than English but is supportive and happy to work at his language skills, but I think the French at home will need to be led by me.

I could be overthinking this but if anyone has any experience or thoughts on practical ways to reintroduce the language that would be amazing!

Post by Mayken on May 15, 2018 23:03:25 GMT 9

Hello Angela and welcome to the Zoo!

I can't help you myself, but I suggest you read Marie 's thread here, as her situation is somewhat similar to yours in that she and her husband are both ML speakers in the UK with French as the ml. Marie has implemented lots of creative ideas to help her children learn French.

Post by Marisa on May 16, 2018 1:36:42 GMT 9

Hi Angela!

I'm a native speaker of Spanish living in the US, where my daughter was born (she's 26 months old now). I'm a single mother, so she's stuck with me 24/7. I never use English, our ML, to talk to her AT ALL. Being a linguist who teaches Spanish for a living (and yes, let's admit it, being a little bit crazy as well), I decided that my daughter would definitely be bilingual, and then I thought 'why not multilingual?' So I'm trying. A long, long time ago I studied German, so I decided to introduce this language to her as well. It's been challenging, because I'm by no means a fluent speaker of German (not at all, actually), but I religiously read to her in German every single day, she listens to German songs and cartoons (in addition to the Spanish ones), and I do my very best to use German sentences with her every now and then (things like "which color is this flower" or "where is mom now"). So far, her dominant language is clearly Spanish, but to my surprise, she knows a significant amount of German words too, so when she says a word in Spanish, she immediately gives me the translation in German if she knows it (!!!). And then, one day, I thought "let's try French as well!" The problem with that is, I never studied French. NEVER. Can't speak it, can't read it...so it was even a more daunting task. I figured that this might be her weakest language, but I tried anyway...

... so, once a week, we meet with one of my students, who is a French major, and she reads and talks to her in French. We also watch YouTube nursery rhymes in French (she loves the "Little Baby Bum" ones). Because I can't read in French, I looked for other 'reading options,' and like Marie points out, the reading videos on YouTube are of great help, and she loves them! Now she always asks to watch them. For her age, you can check out YouTube channels like "Maman Christie," "Maman Doudou," "Chevalier Crevette," and her absolute favorite, "Les Petits Coucous" (he might like "Monde des Titounis" too). I've noticed how lately my daughter tries to repeat the sounds that she hears, and very, very slowly, she adds the French word when she gives me those translations I mentioned before. At this point, her French knowledge is more passive than active (for example, I'd say "mouton,' and she makes the correct sound; the same with 'cochon'), but hopefully she'll use more French words in the future.

I'm also trying to do my very best to help her with French. I don't speak it, but I try to repeat what I hear, mimicking the pronunciation the speaker uses. Since I know the phonetic symbols, I'm in the process of transcribing the words from her cute "English-French vocabulary book" so that I can 'pretend I can speak French' and teach her those words. It's been difficult, but I don't know, with Spanish and German, I've noticed that because she hears those words and sentences from me, she seems to be learning them better (or so I think), so I try to add the 'mom component' to her French learning experience. Of course, my main fear is 'what if I actually don't pronounce this word correctly, or use the wrong grammatical structure?,' but so far, she seems to be enjoying the experience.

If you can read French, I strongly suggest that you do that with your son. Read as much as you can! In my experience, this has been CRUCIAL in my daughter's language development in both Spanish and German. And use as many visuals as you can. Offering the English translation, as you mention, isn't probably the best idea (I do that with my daughter, I have to say, but with her two minority languages, never with English). As Adam mentions in his book, the more playful you can be, the more efficiently the kids are going to learn, so make sure he sees things as playful activities, where he can associate actions to words. If your son likes dinosaurs (too much Peppa Pig, sorry!! Ha, ha), for example, you can check out dinosaurs coloring pages online, print some, grab the crayons, and ask your son "do you want to paint a red dinosaur?' and show him with hand movements/actions what you mean, and then say 'or do you want to paint a green dinosaur?' (don't expect masterful painting, though , but to my knowledge, every single kid likes crayons, so he will enjoy this!). You can use French all the time while doing this, keep it simple, and hopefully the tacit vocabulary knowledge he's learning will eventually turn into production, and he'll actually say 'rouge' and 'vert'!

Post by Angela on May 16, 2018 4:58:17 GMT 9

Thanks very much, Mayken and Marisa! Thanks for the thread link, I did have a look through the threads but I clearly missed that one. We do struggle a bit with resources - there are loads out there I know, it's just tracking down useful ones!

Marisa, I completely agree with the reading. My little boy luckily loves books which is a huge help (especially now that he doesn't just love chewing them! ) and one of his favourites is a French one. I haven't been systematic with it though and I suspect that's what's missing. I had to do some counting with him today and I did the first round in English then switched to French for the rest (but making sure I kept the same intonation and rhythm). He didn't seem perturbed but peered at me closely the whole time, clearly trying to work out this new twist on the thing he thought he knew.

I'm going to check out the various resources suggested, put on the big girl trousers and just give it a go. We are going to have to keep English as the family language for the moment anyway due to hubby not speaking it well so hopefully that'll avoid too much change too quickly.

Post by Amy on May 16, 2018 5:38:38 GMT 9

Hi Angela,

I'm slightly late but I was going to suggest an idea: why not arrange a "ml play time" (e.g: 30mins) that you could start with a couple of ml nursery rhymes, then ml storytelling, and finish off with actual playing where you will speak ml only? At first, you can start with a shorter time when you speak in ml, and then increase this as your son gets more comfortable.

Don't be scared to speak French to your little one. Okay you're not a native, so what? Think about it that way: wouldn't it be better that your child speaks French like you than not speak it at all? Because the likelihood is, he's more likely not to learn French if he doesn't get this incredible opportunity of his mum rearing him in that language. Don't doubt yourself, and never let others make you doubt it. You are doing great, and it is still time to make up for that "break" you took. But if you take it up again, never let go again. Bilingual education is a lifelong commitment. And plan ahead, once your son has had a lot of exposure and you can tell he understands the ml, make sure to create a need in him to speak it. Exposure and need are the key combination to get the child active in both languages.

As to bilingual children getting confused, this is one of those myths. What happens is that they might take a little longer to speak but that's simply because they have twice the amount of language to learn than their monolingual peers. My 2 daughters are trilingual, and trust me they don't get confused!

All the best of luck on your journey and for the arrival of your second child.

Amy

***"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars" - Oscar Wilde***

Post by Adam Beck on May 18, 2018 10:22:50 GMT 9

I have started small, with more songs and doubling up on some frequent words like "thank you, merci" etc but if I do that long term he will see no need to use the French because I am using the English for him. He can go to a French-speaking nursery at 3 but not before and I have a couple of Francophone friends with children the same age but I am wondering if anyone has any advice for reintroducing the language without making him feel insecure? Is this just a really bad time to do it?

Angela, I'm not sure there's a "bad time," really--it just depends on the approach. And the approach you're now pursuing--starting small, keeping things playful and appealing, monitoring your son's reactions, and expanding your efforts from there--sounds like a suitable way to establish and then sustain these efforts over time.

As it seems a French-speaking nursery is on the horizon, this is a huge plus for eventually generating more momentum and progress. In the meantime, I wouldn't necessarily worry about the second half of the "bilingual equation": creating the need for him to use the target language with you. This is important, of course, but may not be realistic, at least for now, given the circumstances. What's more important is to establish effective and sustainable habits and routines for providing exposure to French, on a daily basis. But again, this will probably need to happen in moderation early on--through enjoyable times of reading aloud, singing songs, playing games, etc.--so that he begins to gravitate toward the language and not away from it.

So perhaps my best advice would be to focus on playful exposure--through you and through others, as available--and expand the amount of French input over time (for both children). Then, with the added exposure and need that the French-speaking nursery can offer, at that point you'll likely be in a better position to encourage more active use of French at home, too.

Patience and persistence will produce the payoff you seek! And, Angela, congratulations to you and your husband as you await the debut of your second child!

Adam Beck is the founder of Bilingual Monkeys and The Bilingual Zoo, and the author of the popular non-fiction book Maximize Your Child's Bilingual Ability amzn.to/22XKuCt and the humorous novel How I Lost My Ear amzn.to/2EsjVRS, both available worldwide.

Post by Angela on May 19, 2018 21:56:10 GMT 9

Thanks very much for your encouragement and good wishes everyone. It's been a great help in stopping the doubting voices who had been getting way too much air-time recently! I'm looking out for some of the Tchoupi books (I see there's one for a new baby sister which seems too good to miss!) and will just focus on introducing the language more and more but not making a "thing" of it. Weirdly, for his own reasons, my son's word for "sausage" is "saucisse" - unprompted coincidence so I'm starting with that.

And if it was the case that he just gets to be comfortable in French at 18, if not fully bilingual/biliterate, that is still an improvement on where he'd probably get if I didn't do anything (the UK education system is notoriously unsupportive about languages!).

Post by Marisa on May 21, 2018 5:14:28 GMT 9

Angela, I also was very worried that my daughter was getting too much screen time, but then I thought "oh well, it's for a greater cause!" So far, I haven't noticed that she refuses to do any reading or music listening because all she wants to do is watch cartoons, so I'm honestly not too worried about this anymore. She loves watching her YouTube videos, and it's exposure to the minority language(s), so...it's fine.

My little one loves T'choupi now. I just discovered the T'choupi channel on YouTube, and they have the "T'choupi et ses amis" and the "T'choupi a l'ecole" series (I do apologize for not adding the accent marks, but this computer doesn't let me do that). She loves the one about the school, actually, so first she watches one of those reading videos, and then I normally let her watch one cartoon episode (two if it's the weekend, why not?).

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Angela: So sorry for your loss. She was a great woman. I hope you feel a bit better. Kisses from Spain. Apr 22, 2018 23:34:43 GMT 9*

Mayken: We visited a Loire Valley château yesterday. Our daughter got a kids' activity booklet and we parents got the regular tour booklet in French. She asked for one in German (our ml). When I later asked her why, she said "Because I'm a German-speaker!" Apr 23, 2018 23:23:36 GMT 9

Nellie: Haha love it Mayken! The best thing is - she is right!Apr 24, 2018 5:45:09 GMT 9

Mayken: My daughter's ml homework for this week included baking a cake - there's a cake in the story they read, and after each chapter there are questions and tasks, and the current chapter has the step-by-step recipe. She's to bring the cake to school too.May 1, 2018 23:48:48 GMT 9*

Amy: What a nice original homework! Makes such a change from standard homework, and I wouldn't be surprised if kids remember more from it! I like your bilingual school Mayken! Lucky little girl, and lucky Mummy! May 2, 2018 0:00:43 GMT 9*

Mayken: ml cake homework update: About half the class brought cake (8 out of 15), not all of them were the cake from the book recipe, but my daughter's was the most popular. (Maybe because we added food colouring and topped it with chocolate icing and smarties?)May 4, 2018 5:58:10 GMT 9

Mayken: I still have that to look forward to, Jana! Mother's Day in our ML country is two weeks later, and the ml teacher goes along with that date. (It was last Sunday in our ml country.)May 16, 2018 5:58:11 GMT 9

Flir: Adam, uh oh. Time waits for no one. I'm very sorry to hear that. Stay strong man, your kids are looking up to you to give them as much as your parents gave you once. Best wishes.May 24, 2018 20:11:03 GMT 9*